Title

Author

Date of Award

Document Type

Scholarly Project

Degree Name

Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT)

Department

Occupational Therapy

First Advisor

Carla Wilhite

Keywords

Child, Preschool -- education; Training Support -- Minnesota

Abstract

“The estimated cost burden to the Minnesota K-12 system due to children entering kindergarten unprepared for school success is about $113 million annually” (Chase, Coffee-Borden, Anton, Morre, and Valorose, 2008, pg. 1). These delays in school readiness can lead to continued achievement gaps throughout a child’s academic career (Gonzali-Lee and Mueller, 2010). One way to decrease that achievement gap is through offering innovative early intervention programming to increase readiness skills before kindergarten. Hand in Hand Preschool, located in Northfield, MN is a preschool that is continuously looking for ways to increase all students’ readiness skills. One such program that increases student readiness skills is Stimulating Maturity Through Accelerated Readiness Training (SMART). This program is a multi-sensory based curriculum designed to increase readiness skills through utilizing movement to stimulate the brain. Implementation of this program has the potential to help all children including those who have special needs and those who are typically developing.

The barrier to the implementation of SMART in Hand in Hand Preschool is funding for training of teachers in SMART and equipment needed. This problem led the author to research and develop a grant proposal for Hand in Hand Preschool teachers to attend the training and obtain equipment for the initiation of the SMART program.

The research of this scholarly project includes the background and basis of the SMART program along with the processes involved with developing a grant proposal. The activities/methodology includes the actions that were taken to write a grant proposal for the SMART program. The product of this project is a grant proposal that was submitted for full funding of the SMART program for Hand in Hand Preschool.